Flannery admitted to Australian Academy of Science for PR work. Who is next? Cate Blanchett?

What does it take to be a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science? Apparently, making wildly exaggerated predictions that are already known to be wrong, calling people names, and having a thin grip on the scientific method is just the stuff the Academy is looking for. Who knew? Science used to be about seeking the truth.

Tim Flannery

The Australian Academy of Science thinks that it can give the besieged Tim Flannery more credibility. Instead, they pour their own credibility down the sink. If making predictions that are wrong and exaggerated, and following fashions of scientific groupthink is “good science”, who next will make the hallowed list of “Fellows” – Cate Blanchett? Clive Hamilton? Charles Manson?

Hailing people who achieve in Science Communication might be fine, but it is not communicating science when their predictions don’t fit the real world and they won’t change the theory. The prophesies of Tim are a religion. (See “Help! How you can tell a scientist from a non-scientist”.)

Now every time Flannery makes a statement like these below, it can carry the AAS logo:

For the first time, this global super-organism, this global intelligence will be able to send a signal, a strong and clear signal to the earth. And what that means in a sense is that we can, we will be a regulating intelligence for the planet, I’m sure, in the future … And lead to a stronger Gaia, if you will, a stronger earth system”. ABC The Drum (No record available?)

In science, ”a theory is only valid for as long as it has not been disproved“… (The Weather Makers, 2005, p2)

Vincent Gray dryly replied: If I state that Flannery will go to a special monkey heaven when he dies, who could ever disprove that?

How many favors has Flannery done science communication? The reputation of science?

Flannery says we need “a clear and level-headed discussion“, but he calls those who disagree with him “deniers“, and likens Nobel Physics Prize winners to “flat earthers“ who say “the climate isn’t changing“, even though no serious skeptical scientist has ever said such a thing. It’s sloppy thinking based on sloppy research and wrapped in hypocrisy and ideology. Flannery is not a man who is even trying to have a scientific conversation. Is this the AAS “spokesman” for science?

How did it come to this? The downfall of another once-great institution

The Academy needs to move with the times. It’s been caught here, another unwitting victim of the government monopsony that distorts the scientific market free of ideas. While our government (and many others) have poured billions into research to find a crisis due to CO2, none of them have paid anything to find the opposite. The scientists of the Academy have been caught napping. There are around 450 Fellows, and 20 of the 21 new appointments are rigorously done, but it only took 6 in the Special Election Committee to recommend “Tim-Flannery”. The only vote is an email one, and there is no proviso for discussion or dissent before the vote. (There used to be when votes were taken at the AGM.)

There would have been some scientists who were outraged by the suggestion that their prestigious fellowship should be shared and diluted with activists who sound careless hyperbolic alarms, but they had no chance to warn the other fellows. Instead, unless a fellow had the time or interest to seek out information from independent scientists on the internet, they would presumably have relied on 1/the multitude of government scientists who have never tried to disprove the theory that CO2 delivers catastrophes, or 2/ the ABC, who admit they simply repeat what the multitude say.

The Academy needs to have open debates in order to advance science. Credibility needs to be earned, rather than surreptitiously awarded via special committees. Anything less and the AAS becomes just another inadvertent tool of one-sided government funding.

An international nanophotonics leader and experts in cancer, plant biology, polymers, sensory ecology, mathematics, space science and science communication are among 21 new Fellows to be admitted to the Australian Academy of Science.

Representing Australia’s leading research scientists, the Australian Academy of Science annually honours a small number of Australian scientists for their outstanding contributions to science, by election to the Academy.

The new Fellows hail from institutions around Australia and have made internationally significant achievements in a broad range of scientific disciplines. The youngest is only 39 years of age.

“I warmly congratulate all of our new Fellows for their outstanding contributions to Australia and the world,” said Academy President, Professor Suzanne Cory.

The new Fellows will be admitted to the Australian Academy of Science and present summaries of the work for which they have been honoured at the Academy’s annual three-day celebration, Science at the Shine Dome, on 2 May in Canberra.

…

Professor Timothy Fridtjof Flannery FAA

Environmental sustainability, Macquarie University

Advancing public awareness and understanding of science.

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More information: A whole book of Flannery errors, contradictions and failed predictions

No one has done more to systematically analyze Tim Flannery’s science than Wes Allen.

The Weather Makers Re-examined is the first comprehensive review and critique of Tim Flannery’sThe Weather Makers – the 2005 best seller that propelled him to become the Australian of the Year (2007) and now the Climate Change Commissioner for the Gillard Government.

The tally?

23 misinterpretations,

28 contradictory statements,

31 untraceable or suspect sources,

45 failures to reflect uncertainty,

66 over-simplications or factual errors,

78 exaggerations and over a hundred unsupported dogmatic statements, many of them quite outlandish.

“After diagnosing Gaia with a raging life-threatening fever, The Weather Makers prescribes the equivalent of a homeopathic remedy.”

“Flying over Eurasia, Tim Flannery [says he] looked down on the large network of city lights burning “so bright – with so much energy – as to alarm me.” Would he find the darkness over densely populated North Korea more comforting?”

Thanks to Wes Allen for help and research in preparing this post. Thanks to Wes for publishing an excellent resource book. Every school and library in Australia ought to have a copy of it. Why not request it?

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UPDATE: Rafe Campion at Catallaxy finds an excellent quote regarding our not so honorable Academy and what happened the day the committee went to tell him that the long range forecasts were 50:50 likely to be junk…

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Rating: 9.4/10 (105 votes cast)

Flannery admitted to Australian Academy of Science for PR work. Who is next? Cate Blanchett?, 9.4 out of 10 based on 105 ratings

As does Greg Combet apparently Dennis. Sophie Mirabella gave a great speech in Parliament questioning why the Minister for Alarmist bullshit had just purchased a beachfront property, soon after the Carbon Dioxide Tax was passed, when everyone living in site of water is apparently needing to do a Noah and start bunging together a bloody ark for the future.

More of his weird prognostications here on American TV where interestingly it’s the presenter who uses the “global super-organism” phrase.
I confess with some embarrassment to a sense of excitement when I first read Lovelock. The feeling didn’t last long though.

Until now, the Australian Academy of Science was not associated in the public mind with climate alarmism. Through this single, idiotic decision, it has ensured that it will become the subject of ridicule for the next decade and will be identified by the public as part of a conpromised scientific establishment barracking for the Greens’ highly divisive and punitive carbon tax. As the recent Galaxy survey indicates, the AAS can’t afford to further alienate the public, I’d have thought.

I am afraid Pointman us Aussie’s are screwed our oppositon has swallowed the global warming cool aid the same as the government.
Unfortunately no Stephen Harpers in Australia to save us.
Our only hope is that the world comes to realize that global warming is a scam but I am not holding my breath.

It’s up to the electorate to get that promise from the Liberals or don’t vote for them.

“Voters in both America and Australia, must force these undertakings out of their respective incoming parties well before election day or they’ll be in danger of voting in another Obama, with a landslide majority. If you don’t make them work for a victory, then they’ll ignore you once they gain power.”

She can do even better than that. She can stand in front of a picture of a long defunct, hundred or more year old power station with multiple stacks spewing out black smoke, in England, and pretend that it’s in some way linked to what we do here, today, and therefore we need a Carbon-Dioxide Tax. And keep a straight face… Face it, the woman’s brilliant.

Barak Obama’s winning of a Nobel Peace price for getting elected president of the USA is the epidemy of prizes to reward a point of view rather than accomplishment. Our own National Academy of Science apparently has its own alternative track for membership so that it too can be populated by the folks with the right point of view. In the world of government beaurocrats where credentials matter more than a body of work showing scientific achievement, Mr. Flannery’s nomination to the Australian Academy of Sciences is just par for the course. Its no wonder technically literate conservatives are more skeptical of big government science than the general public as a whole.

The advent of the honorary doctorate or other unearned honorariums was one of the most telling harbingers of the death of objective hard science, in favour of advocacy and polemicism. Those of a socialist or communitarian belief system particularly revere celebrity, and are keen to reward themselves for their ideology rather than their often limited accomplishments. Obama’s Nobel Prize was merely the apex of this masturbatory approach to awards for “services” to civil affairs. Flannery’s admission to a supposedly august scientific body merely demeans everything that body purport to stand for, and yet only increases the desire of objective observers to see Flim Flam toppled off his unearned pedestal, landing on his ample and well-fed posterior. Fame whores by any other name.

Mr Newman yesterday declared his LNP government would axe seven other green schemes, on the grounds the carbon tax would make them redundant. “We now have a federal government that is imposing a great big carbon tax on us and the rest of the country that is meant to solve all these (environmental) problems,” he said.
Mr Newman has given the job of dismantling the programs to the bureaucrat who set them up – Greg Withers, who is married to Ms Bligh.

For those in the dark about what happened here, Greg Withers was controversially appointed Director of the Office of Climate Change by his wife when she became Premier.

THE price tag for Anna Bligh’s decision to quit continues to mount as her sudden exit is likely to cost Labor $240,000 in electoral funding.

Under laws introduced by her own government, political parties receive $40,000 for each elected member bi-annually.
However, the Labor Party will not be able to pocket the money for Ms Bligh, which collectively adds up to $240,000 for the entire term, because of her decision to exit the political stage.

The loss will be a massive hit for the party which has been left reeling both electorally and financially from Saturday’s state election. Labor won’t be able to get its hands on the cash even if they win the by-election in Ms Bligh’s former seat of South Brisbane. The controversial funding laws require the MP to have achieved the necessary support at a “general election” and does not make reference to what occurs in a by-election. Sources in both Labor and the LNP believe Ms Bligh’s decision will cost her party the funding. The LNP cannot get the money for each of its new MPs either as the maximum amount each party can get bi-annually is $1 million, the equivalent of having 25 members. The revelation adds to the controversy surrounding Ms Bligh’s decision on Sunday which came after she repeatedly claimed during the campaign that if re-elected, she would serve a full term. Labor members are seething as Ms Bligh’s decision effectively prevented talented defeated Labor MP Cameron Dick, viewed as their best leadership hope, from contesting South Brisbane.

Ms Bligh also failed to resign properly and may be forced to sign a second resignation letter after her seat is declared.

Bligh and Queensland labor have been too clever for their own good and we can expect more of the same from the writhing Gillard administration in Canberra.

I used to think that KRudd was the Butterfingers Irving of Australian politics but Bligh and Gillard are gunning themselves down in spades.

A hundred and forty-one could draw faster than she,
But Gillard was looking for one forty-three.
Walked into the Climate Bar like a woman insane,
And ordered three fingers of carbon tax plain.

One day a Can Do arrived in town.
His aim was to shoot that policy down.
Can Do said, “Draw, and draw right now!”
And Gillard drew, drew a picture of Browns cow.

The LNP was a comin’ on a train at first light,
The Labor party said, “Gillard, we need your insight.”
When that train pulled in at the break of day,
Gillard’s insight was there, but she was away.

Well, finally Gillard got three votes only.
It started right there, outside The Lobby
She was sittin’ there twirlin’ mad policies around,
And butterfingers Gillard gunned herself down!

Just on the ECQ payments for votes received, the Labor party must be broke. They spent a fortune on ads during the campaign, and I’m interested to see how broke they really are.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come with the begging bowl looking for public sympathy and some funds at some point.

The LNP had big troubles a while back when Beattie was premier due to not getting enough votes and support, I would expect for Labor it is far worse.

I actually think that Bligh quitting before the seat was even declared and counting finished should count as a withdrawal of candidacy rather than the resignation of a sitting MP. As such it should be given to the 2nd place in the votes, or at least redistribute Blighs preference votes.

Actually, it’s priceless. If he fails to resign on a principle, then it was obviously all hyperbowl. If he goes off in, what was it, oh yes, high dungeon then he’ll get nothing. Either way, Newman’s a genius.

Money
Get away
You get a good job with good pay and you’re okay
Money
It’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team

Money
Well, get back
I’m all right Jack
Keep your hands off of my stack
Money
It’s a hit
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit
I’m in the high-fidelity first class travelling set
I think I need a Lear jet

“HuHuh! I was in the right!”
“Yes, absolutely in the right!”
“I certainly was in the right!”
“You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!”
“Yeah!”
“Why does anyone do anything?”
“I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time!”
“I was just telling him, he couldn’t get into number 2. He was asking why he wasn’t coming up on freely, after I was yelling and screaming and telling him why he wasn’t coming up on freely. It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out”

It is now time for the real scientists to stand up and be counted. Several are showing the way but members of these illustrious institutions ought to be revolting, starting with throwing out all current leadership cliques (at least they had a practice run in the Royal Society to have it change it’s previous climate warming nonsense).
Time to remind ourselves of some of the giants of the past who bequeathed us the wonderful knowledge that has allowed us to lift ourselves from drudgery and short lives and who placed science onto it’s (one time) deserved pedestal.
Now the media and politically correct have infiltrated such as the ACS who have now lifted Alchemists whose only skill is in producing luminous bullshit to their (once) hallowed ranks. Enstien, et al. must be rolling in their graves.

IT IS FROM US THAT THE ALL-ENGULFING TERROR PROCEEDS. WE HAVE IN OUR SERVICE PERSONS OF ALL OPINIONS, OF ALL DOCTRINES, RESTORATING MONARCHISTS, DEMAGOGUES, SOCIALISTS, COMMUNISTS, AND UTOPIAN DREAMERS OF EVERY KIND. We have harnessed them all to the task: EACH ONE OF THEM ON HIS OWN ACCOUNT IS BORING AWAY AT THE LAST REMNANTS OF AUTHORITY, IS STRIVING TO OVERTHROW ALL ESTABLISHED FORM OF ORDER. By these acts all States are in torture; they exhort to tranquility, are ready to sacrifice everything for peace: BUT WE WILL NOT GIVE THEM PEACE UNTIL THEY OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE OUR INTERNATIONAL SUPER-GOVERNMENT, AND WITH SUBMISSIVENESS.

The “Gaia hypothesis” is badly misunderstood by both side of the environmental debate.

The shame is that as an idea, Lovelock’s meme actually commends the radical terraforming of planet Earth by humankind and condemns the most popular environmentalist arguments to the dustbin of obsolete conceptualisations.

To start with the Gaia hypothesis isn’t a hypothesis because it’s tautological and therefore offers no implications that can be empirically tested. So it’s not science.

It’s a metaphor about the evolution of complex systems and humankind’s role in nature. Just like Isaac Newton’s metaphor of the universe as a clock animated a whole century of creative invention and scientific advance, Lovelock’s metaphor is new gestalt for imagining humanity’s relationship to nature — one which might well free us from the regressive ecological “creationism” which is now threatening to stall global human development.

The core proposition of the Gaia metaphor is that the Earth’s systems–geophysical, oceanic, biological, atmospheric and even the electromagnetic envelope beyond the atmosphere act as a single meta-system to regulate a highly stable internal state that is almost ridiculously far from equilibrium. This is exactly what the human body does. Your organs from your skin to your heart, lungs, circulatory systems, gut, etc., work together to maintain a constant state far far from thermodynamic equilibrium. The human body is not an object but a complex system in a constant state of evolution, rather more like reverse waterfall than a static rock. Same with our planet.

The Earth can be thought of as a single living organism, but for one small item…. To qualify as a form of “life” an entity must have a mechanism for reproducing itself.

James Lovelock’s Gaia metaphor postulates that we humans are that reproduction mechanism — that our planet with the recent event of human evolution and with it human conscious awareness is about to flower. Earth is going to seed. Human intelligence and with it vast amounts of genetic information originating from this planet’s evolution over the last circa 800 million years is about to begin the process of colonising the solar system.

Having satisfied the biological requirements for the Earth as a living entity, Lovelock’s meme also suggests Humanity’s role is as the conscious awareness of the planet, metaphorically the cerebral cortex, so to speak. For a billion years of evolutionary gestation, our planet has been unable to be holistically aware of itself, but now — through human culture and science — our biosphere is about to take conscious control of the evolutionary process, which to this point in time was guided by nothing more than random walks and natural selection.

So, the Gaia metaphor is in fact an extremely progressive and optimistic redefining of the meaning of “nature” versus “unnatural” which is antithesis to the reactionary Green creationist concept of conserving “nature” by excluding humans and evolution as transgressive.

If we imagine humankind as the conscious awareness of a planet awakening after a billion years of gestation then obviously we are the will and means for the planet to transform itself into whatever we (it, her, us, God?) conceive the future to be. We are nature, we are the rational mind of the planet.

Sure, humanity will robustly, perhaps violently, debate what our planet’s future should be, but the old pre-Gaiatic ecological arguments of humanity equal “unnatural” and “greed” are rendered irrelevant as a kind of conservationist creationism, atheistic adaptions of the Abrahamic traditions of The Fall from Grace, sin, shame and guilt. The Gaia meme properly recognising humankind’s real, integrated relationship with the Earth, which, metaphorically, is more like the role intentional and rational awareness plays in the life of people and society.

Moreover, the Gaia metaphor allows us to recognise the absolutely unique point in the 6 billion years of Earth’s history the emergence of human civilisation represents. The Gaia metaphor puts us firmly in control of our destiny with a limitless horizon of almost infinite possibilities, progress and hope. Quite the opposite of modern reactionary environmentalism, which has adopted a messianic millenarian stance, ie, a future eco-apocalypse will destroy us all unless we sinners repent and mend our ways.

Thanks Wes.
Definitely an interesting idea. But it sounds like religion and ideology to me.
Gaism would seem to have nothing to do with global warming or climate change other than explain why the high priests of Gaism are prepared to compromise core scientific principals based on a hyper sensitivity to the real or perceived “health” of the earth. Perhaps they imagine that growth of our species will be “unsustainable” if allowed to continue at present rates and that imposing restrictions on growth (through restrictions on our use of energy) will benefit the earth. Maybe CAGW is simply poppulation control and ideological proselytizing to ensure that the Gaia hypothesis will become actualized.

The UN and One World Worship
By Fay Voshell
Bolivia’s president Morales, having achieved the establishment of pantheism as his country’s official religion, has taken his religious agenda to the UN, which has acceded to his wishes by establishing April 22 as Mother Earth Day, thus establishing the worship of the goddess Pachamama (known as Gaia in other circles).

Normally, one would react to a UN resolution giving goddess Mother Earth the same rights as humans with a yawn. But Morales, his Green supporters, fellow globalists, believers in liberation theology and the Marxist dialectic take the resolution quite seriously, as the UN is seen as an international vehicle for accomplishing goals long in the making.

One would suppose the UN would be committed to cultural and religious diversity, eschewing the establishment of a global religion, given the fact it has representatives from countries around the world. But as it turns out, the UN has long had an interest in a global government and universal religion.

Almost no one has actually read James Lovelock’s original book, so we reject the idea based on mischaracterisations by Green propagandists – who haven’t read the book either – but have appropriated the Gaia metaphor as their standard. If we simply reject ideas because Tim Flannery and the Greens latched on to a debauched interpretation first, then we would also deny that the climate changes. Or that the Earth has warmed about 0.7c in the last century. Or that evolution is real. That’s not skepticism, but reactionary tribalism.

Ironically, the Greens have appropriated Lovelock’s Gaia meme without understanding that the Gaia hypothesis authorises humanity — as the metaphorical conscious awareness of the Earth — to transform the planet in whatever manner suits our needs because we ARE the mind of the planet. And if we are the rational mind of the Earth, then we are nature. And if we are nature, then nothing we do can be unnatural….therefore, the Greens are left hanging with no logical basis for their moralising (and hypocritical) Wowserism, or grounds to impose their abnegation of progressive evolution upon, well, the very Earth itself.

The Gaia metaphor implies that human cultural, technological and physical evolution also represents the planet giving birth to a kind of panspermic transfer of Earth’s genetic information to the far corners of our solar system and much later, perhaps the whole galaxy. To facilitate this function, the Earth buried eons of stored solar energy in the form of hydrocarbons for us to spend on the transition from a pre-industrial, agrarian civilisation to an information-based space-faring civilisation colonising the solar system. Kind of like a geological trust fund to kick start our cosmic career…mum really worked hard these last billion years to provide for our (her) future.

So not only are we the conscious awareness of the Earth, but we are also its seed, soon to be children. In this context, the environmental movement is nothing more than modern Luddites, albeit better funded, in a futile attempt to thwart Earth’s inevitable plans for its own naturally unfolding future…

The Gaia hypothesis has nothing to do with God or Goddesses other than Lovelock chose the Greek word for Earth Goddess to popularise his idea. Although, it does not exclude the possibility of a Godhead, but instead privileges anthropomorphic metaphor as a way to visualise vast complexities too large to mentally or verbally grasp in a moment of language or contemplation without the cognitive tool of metaphor. Just like the way modern physics has a mythology for the origins of the universe. We all know how to explain the “modern scientific” explanation of how the universe began to children who looking up at a starry sky ask and hard questions. Where are we? What are stars? Where did we come from?

That’s all the Gaia metaphor really is… a contextualising metaphor about how the next few steps in evolution will unfold now that our civilisation has reach a global scale not only economically, but also in the informatic, cybernetic sense that pretty soon almost every point on the surface of the Earth will be a node on the Internet, with some level of sentience to follow soon after.

Finally, the Gaia meme suggests that the stage of techno-cultural evolution humanity is going through today is a universal evolutionary template, at least for Earth-like planets around sun-like stars. It might well be as inevitable that Earth-like planets — as metaphorically living beings — give birth to extra-planetary civilisation as it is that primordial oceans must tend towards creating proto-cellular life that then evolves towards far more complex life forms that ultimately crawl out of the oceans and colonise the dry continents…

The Gaia model illuminates where we are not only in history, but in geological, aye, even cosmic terms, so chin up fellow Earthians and put your shoulder to the wheel. There’s a long ways to go and no turning back.

Wes, this is the exact same argument I use against my catastrofarian friends. It is mankind’s duty, even mandate, to release C02 into the atmosphere to counteract earth’s atmospheric carbon death spiral. 350ppm should be celebrated as one of man’s most important achievements over the last 10 000 years.

The very notion that 7 billion people is over-population is absurd. The carrying capacity of the planet is more in the order of trillions. We do not face a land shortage problem going forward. It is simply an energy issue.

The greatest threat we face and the real environmental catastrophe looming for both mankind and the biosphere(man being the stewards of the environment) is global declining sperm counts. It would be a disater of evolution if man’s ability to reproduce became forfeit due to the distraction of our scientific and political elite over the increase of a trace gas which is beneficial to all life.

Even those who advocate for population reduction need to pay attention to this issue. This is not about the desired number of people on the planet. This is the concern over whether or not people will exist on this planet in future generations.

“I think that, within this century, the concept of the strong Gaia will actually become physically manifest.”

Maybe Tim can build himself a house on top of Mt Olympus to be ready for the great event. Or perhaps just visit a car yard. When even people on his own side are saying stop going gaga you know the AAAS is likewise in the market for self hugging jackets.

Obviously Flannery is not alone with all this PR alarmism and twisting words.
From the ABC website today

ELEANOR HALL: Overnight the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its paper on climate change and extreme weather events. And it warned that the planet is already experiencing an increase in heat waves.

It also said there were likely to be more floods and more droughts.

In a bid to warn the public against the dangers the Global Campaign for Climate Action has emailed hundreds of its support groups warning them to put aside the cautious language in the intergovernmental report and warn that climate change poses a greater threat than fires or earthquakes.

Obviously the good folks at the Global Campaign for Climate Action have not actually tried breathing in a forest fire, or experienced an earthquake above magnitude 6 or 7.

Such dramatic statements may cause the twitterati to pause for a microsecond, with little lasting effect. But by drawing such a long conclusion, they most certainly will alienate all those who have managed to survive severe natural disasters in the past.

They are constantly shooting themselves in the foot. I just wish their aim was a bit higher.

Reality check time… Paul Ehrlich who has predicted doom for the planet for 40 years now – none of his claims have come true or even look remotely plausible after all this time – and remains unrepentant, still believes he will be vindicated. (Or at least many in the environmental movement remain faithful.) Just that he got the timing wrong. Doom is, apparently, still just around the corner.

And it should be noted he is highly respected in academia and by the media. He regularly receives honours, awards and his opinions and views are still sought out. Being serially wrong is not relevant here. What is important is that you have the “correct” idealogical position.

And if Mr Ehrlich was found to be incorrect and humanity survives and remains vigourous, he would be shattered at the misfortune of it all. There is something ideologically, not to mention pathologically, wrong with those who not only prophesy doom, but also fervently hope and pray for it as a form of personal vindication! People like this are proof that natural selection doesn’t readily apply to humanity- more’s the pity.

A nice analogy odd that when we look to the centre of the universe where the big bang happened. Rather than a void where all the stuff from the big bang has been dispersed, it is so noisy and full of action that we can not see in.

This would tend to agree with the opposite that the centre is actively creating new matter in an ever growing creation. I think it started with a wimper.

If the Academy is handing out Fellowships perhaps they would consider me?

I was incapable of handing in my scientific reports on time, usually because Uni bar night was Thursday & the deadline was Friday. Usually I omitted the either/or abstract, introduction, materials & methods, conclusion because by Friday morning I didn’t give a f*** anyway & was hung over or still high from the night before.

I also once skipped a mid term biochemistry exam to go surfing, but in my defence the surf was epic.

I was also once briefly accused of plagiarism because I put the references at the end of the sentence rather than breaking up the sentence on multiple occasions. I had the last laugh though because the marker wrote “This is plagiarism” in red pen & couldn’t rub it out.

I humbly submit myself for consideration as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Let’s not forget this classic from a Bolt/Flannery interview. We have to believe Tim ‘cos he’s being paid 180,000 bigones a year of taxpayer’s money for part-time telling us the scientific “truth” about cause and cost of future calamities!

“Bolt: On our own, by cutting our emissions, because it’s a heavy price to pay, by 5 per cent by 2020, what will the world’s temperatures fall by as a consequence?

Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.

Bolt: Have you got a number? I mean, there must be some numbers.

Flannery: I just need to clarfy in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.”

Meanwhile today: Outgoing Future Fund chair David Murray has described the carbon tax as the worst piece of economic reform he had seen in his life, warning it would be very bad for the economy.

Well if they`re going to admit Tim Flannery , the Prophet of Gaia to their ranks they may as well just change their name to “The Australian Academy of Post-Normal Science” and be done with it . Then they can start admitting Phrenologists , Alchemists and Astrologists to keep Him company . To commemorate the occasion perhaps they should add a new award to their list ? I suggest the “Lysenko Medal”

O/T but Malcolm Miller @ 18 raised this and again for those who don’t always have time to follow all the links I felt it important enough to do a C & P. We need to be able to reassure the poor gullible people who write to blogs saying we must “do something” (like impose a carbon dioxide tax)to stop floods, droughts, bushfires, tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis and every other natural disaster one can name! Maybe they’ll take notice of their beloved peer-reviewed UNIPCC!

Thanks and due acknowledgement to Roger Pielke Jr. for the following.

“IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme”

“A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change”

“The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while.

A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):

“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
“The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

The report even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature:

“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”

With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including the currently popular “billion dollar disasters” meme, you can simply call “bullshit” and point to the IPCC SREX report.”

Quell surprise. Fellowships have been devalued since the release of the Climategate Emails. These shysters nominate each other in turn.

John P Costellas fine commentary on the emails (Climategate Analysis) sheds a light on how the Fellowship scam works.

December 4, 2007: email 1196872660
Mike Mann feels the need to find an award for his mate, Phil Jones. This episode—and its hilarious aftermath—offers amazing insights into the characters of these two ring-leaders; but it also demonstrates the fallacy of relying on fancy-sounding awards and memberships to denigrate the criticisms of all those who are not “in the club”. First, the menu:

By the way, I am still looking into nominating you for an American Geophysical Union award; I’ve been told that the Ewing medal wouldn’t be the right one. Let me know if you have any particular options you’d like me to investigate…

Jones selects his own award:

As for the American Geophysical Union — just getting one of their Fellowships would be fine.

June 2, 2008: email 1212435868
Mike Mann writes to Phil Jones, reporting his progress in nominating Jones for the award that Jones himself selected:

Hi Phil,
This is coming along nicely. I’ve got five very strong supporting letter writers lined up to support your American Geophysical Union Fellowship nomination (confidentially: Ben Santer, Tom Karl, Jean Jouzel, and Lonnie Thompson have all agreed; I’m waiting to hear back from one more individual; the maximum is six letters, including mine as nominator).
Meanwhile, if you can pass along the following information that is needed for the nomination package, that would be very helpful. Thanks in advance!

June 8, 2008: email 1212924720
Mike Mann writes to Phil Jones, on the issue most dear to his heart:

Hi Phil,
I’m continuing to work on your nomination package to be awarded a Fellowship of the American Geophysical Union (here in my hotel room in Trieste—the weather isn’t any good!). If it’s possible for a case to be too strong, we may have that here! Lonnie is also confirmed as supporting letter writer, along with Kevin, Ben, Tom K, and Jean J. (Four of the five are already American Geophysical Union Fellows, which I’m told is important! Surprisingly, Ben is not yet, nor am I.

But David Thompson is (quite young for one of these). I’m guessing that Mike Wallace and Susan Solomon might have had something to do with that(wink).

Jones should take the hint: Mann will be wanting the favor to be paid back!

Anyway, I wanted to check with you on two things:
1. One thing that people sometimes like to know is the maximum value of “N”, where “N” is the number of papers an individual authored or co-authored that have more than N citations. A level of N = 40 (i.e., an individual has published at least 40 papers that have each been cited at least 40 times) is supposedly an important threshold for admission in the United States National Academy of Sciences. I’m guessing your N is significantly greater than that, and it would be nice to cite that if possible. Would you mind figuring out that number and sending it to me—I think it would be useful in really sealing the case.

Mann is not wrong: such dubious measures of “worth” really are used for such purposes. Of course, in the corrupted field of climate science, such citations are not just of dubious value, but completely meaningless, as Mann and his colleagues had complete control over what was published (and hence cited) and what was not, and repeatedly cited each other’s papers.

2. Would you mind considering a minor revision of your two-page bibliography? In my nomination letter, I’m trying to underscore the diverse areas where you’ve made major contributions … For example, your early Nature papers with Wigley … in 1980 and 1981 seem to be among the earliest efforts to try to do this (though I don’t have copies of the papers, so can’t read them!), and that seems very much worth highlighting to me.

Mann wants to highlight “contributions” of Jones that he himself has never read!
Or is that an incorrect interpretation of his words?

Also, if you happen to have copies of the two early Wigley papers, or even just the text for the Abstracts, it would be great to have a little more detail about those papers so I can appropriately work them into the narrative of my letter.

No, it’s not: he has no idea what is in the papers he wants to cite.
June 11, 2008: email 1213201481
Phil Jones replies to Mike Mann, on Mann’s nomination of Jones:

On point 1 (what Mann called “N”), this is what people call the H index. I’ve tried working this out, and there is software for it on the Web of Science website.
The problem is my surname. I get a number of 62 if I just use the software, but I have too many papers. I then waded through and deleted those in journals I’d never heard of and got 52. I think this got rid of some biologist from the 1970s and 1980s, so go with 52.
I don’t have soft copies of the early papers. I won’t be able to do anything for a few days either. When do you want this in, by the way?

Again, Jones reveals that there is no electronic archiving system at the Climatic Research Unit. Mike Mann:

OK—thanks, I’ll just go with the H = 62. That is an impressive number and almost certainly higher than the vast majority of American Geophysical Union Fellows.

Mann dishonestly ignores Jones’s own disclaimer that the figure of 62 is completely wrong, and decides to use it regardless. Is there any greater insight into the absolute lack of integrity of this man?
In a later email:

I’ll … send you a copy of my nominating letter for comment and suggestions when I am done.
Also — can you provide one or two sentences about the 1980 and 1981 Nature articles with Wigley so that I might be able to work this briefly into the narrative of my letter?

So he doesn’t even feel the need to have a broad understanding of the papers, but will let Jones write his own accolades of himself. Jones replies:

The 1980 and 1981 papers: I don’t have soft copies.
(summarises each paper in one paragraph)
I did look a while ago to see if Nature had back-scanned these papers, but they hadn’t.
Is the above enough? I have hard copies of these two papers—in Norwich.

Note that Jones does not take the opportunity of asking Mann to use the correct figure of H = 52 rather than 62. Jones is implicitly going along with Mann’s deception of the American Geophysical Union.
Mann:

Thanks, Phil—yes, that’s perfect. I just wanted to have some idea of the paper; that’s more than enough information. I wouldn’t bother worrying about scanning in, etc.
I should have a draft letter for you to comment on within a few days or so, after I return from Trieste.

Mann assumes that Jones would have scanned in the papers, simply for the purpose of his own nomination for an award—but previously argued against scanning in a paper for the purposes of critical review by a skeptic. It is good to understand the priorities of these “scientists”.

I heard during the International Detection and Attribution Group meeting that I’ve been made an American Geophysical Union Fellow. I will likely have to go to Toronto to the Spring American Geophysical Union meeting to collect it. I hope I don’t see a certain person (McIntyre) there! I have to get out of a keynote talk I’m due to give in Finland the same day!

It is remarkable that Mike Mann has not already booked Jones’s flights and accommodation!

May 16, 2009: email 1242749575
Let us get now some further insight into the fundamental character of Mike Mann. He writes to Phil Jones:

On a completely unrelated note, I was wondering if you, perhaps in tandem with some of the other usual suspects, might be interested in returning the favor (of being awarded a Fellowship of the American Geophysical Union) this year?

Now we know why he was so adamant about securing Jones’s award!

I’ve looked over the current list of American Geophysical Union Fellows, and it seems to me that there are quite a few who have gotten in (e.g. Kurt Cuffey, Amy Clement, and many others) who aren’t as far along as me in their careers, so I think I ought to be a strong candidate.

If he does say so himself.

Anyway, I don’t want to pressure you in any way, but if you think you’d be willing to help organize, I would naturally be much obliged. Perhaps you could convince Ray or Malcolm to take the lead? The deadline looks as if it is again July 1 this year.
I’m looking forward to catching up with you some time soon, probably at some exotic location of Henry’s choosing.

Does any remnant of doubt remain that awards in this field are absolutely and completely meaningless? Mann may as well pin a gold star on his own chest!
Jones understands the obligation:

I’ll email Ray and Malcolm. I’d be happy to contribute.

Mann:

Thanks much, Phil.

Later, Jones sends an update:

Mike,
Have gotten replies—they’re both happy to write supporting letters, but both are too busy to take it on this year. One suggested waiting till next year. Malcolm is supporting one other person this year. I’d be happy to do it next year, so I can pace it over a longer period. Malcolm also said that (skeptic Fred) Singer had an American Geophysical Union Fellowship!

But that would be impossible!
What with all the work that these fine fellows (and Fellows) were busy with—lining up to award each other in every conceivable combination, with all the paper-work involved—it is no surprise that that they didn’t have enough time to properly document or archive their data or computer programs!

Apart from my meetings, I have skeptics on my back—still; I can’t seem to get rid of them.

Mann:

Thanks much, Phil,
That sounds good. So why don’t we wait until next round (June 2010) on this then. That will give everyone an opportunity to get their ducks in a row. Plus I’ll have one more Nature and one more Science paper on my resume by then (more about that soon!). I’ll be sure to send you a reminder sometime next May or so!

==================================================================

Now that we know how these Fellowship thingies work, we should try to find out who nominated the Shaman Flannery. It’s a given that some backs were scratched.

Baa,
Thank you so much for compiling that hall of shame. It is absolutely clear from the sequence above that these so called scientists display no integrity, no morals and egos the size of Wisconsin.

As I stated above- “Fame whores”, the term is almost not derogatory enough for them. I’ll have to get even more creative- perhaps sending them both a statuette with appropriate plaque inscription confirming their “success” in deserving that particular “award” would be appropo- if anything they are overqualified.

Egos the size of Wisconsin? That must be an east coast americanism that I’m not familiar with. I would have thought “egos the size of Texas” or “Egos the size of Quebec” would be greater accolades of size. Our WA tops them both in size but “Western Australia” has less of a poetic ring to it. The ultimate superlative would be “Egos the size of Sakha”, but the world’s largest province is virtually unknown so the effect is lost.

Calling these scientists “Fame whores” is an insult to whores. I’m assuming whores make testable predictions and can guarantee the results of their work.

Thanks, BH. The two authors of these emails continue to enjoy the benefits of these awards. Contrast that to the ahtletes who compete in the Olympic games. They will have samples taken that can, and will, be used to strip them of their titles if they were found to have cheated, including tests not yet available at the time of the competition.
This is the level of scrutiny imposed on people who are expected to do nothing more than run, swim, jump, be very bendy, and throw things a long way for the benefit of TV viewers.
That the bodies that bestow awards to such ‘scientists’ respond to these emails with….nothing, speaks volumes!

Thanks for your work to bring this to us, Baa. Further evidence that Mann and Jones, in particular, are mediocre, unethical try-hards, who probably can’t believe their luck in being able to manipulate the UN bureaucracy to create vast professional empires. The corollary is that they will not give up their privileges willingly.

‘Nice by dim Tim’ was a loveable comedic creature created by the Harry Enfield team some years ago.
This talented group of scriptwriters and actors would have been laughed off the stage but for all the wrong reasons if they’d have invented the newly elected AAS character honoured by a once highly-respected organisation!
‘Deranged and clearly demented’ would be a better description for a man who not only has the views that he has but feels no shame in trumpeting them to all and sundry.
That the AAS endorses such off-the-wall sentiments is totally unbelievable but clearly true!
His madness is unfortunate on a personal level. Their insanity is unforgivable on a much more worrying scenario.
The homonym of the AAS may be unfortunate but now appropriate.

(3 pages) 29 March: Indian Express: Greenhouse gases may have loaded early atmosphere
Ancient Earth may have been warmed by the presence of greenhouse gases, which made life possible on our planet, a new study, including Indian origin scientist, has suggested…
“Because the sun was so much fainter back then, if the atmosphere was the same as it is today the Earth should have been frozen,” said lead author Sanjoy Som, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., who conducted the research as part of his UW doctoral work in Earth and space sciences.
He and his coauthors – David Catling and Roger Buick of UW Earth and space sciences; Jelte Harnmeijer, a UW graduate now at the Edinburgh Centre for Low Carbon Innovation in Scotland; and Peter Polivka, a UW graduate student in civil engineering – set out to determine how the ancient atmosphere differed from that of today…http://www.indianexpress.com/news/greenhouse-gases-may-have-loaded-early-atmosphere/930037/

You so right, JB. It’s obvious that CO2, at 390 ppm, is the primary driver of global temperature, even if there’s no evidence, and the earth is about to become uninhabitable after 4.5 million years. I mean, what else could have caused a spike in lower troposphere temperature in the past 16 years, as measured by the UAH satellite, the only major aberration since accurate, incorruptible measurement became possible 33 years ago?

rather the early Earth was warmed as it had more water and less land:http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
the assumption that greenhouse gases define the earth temperature is only a hypothesis not supported by much data. the 33°C warming due to greenhouse the same.
I rather think it is the oceans that do the most and the greenhouse gases only small variations around.
As real data is gathering getting more and more precise we see the more and more invalidation of the “all warming is greenhouse” hypothesis.

30 March: ABC: Carbon tax windfall for coal-fired power stations
Six Victorian coal-fired power generators will get the bulk of $1 billion of Federal Government funding aimed at helping them deal with the introduction of the carbon tax.
Hazelwood Power Station in the Latrobe Valley will get the largest payment of around $266 million this year.
Yallourn Power Station and Loy Yang A will get almost the same amount…
The conservation group Environment Victoria has criticised the payments.
Spokeswoman Kelly O’Shanassy says the carbon tax was intended to reduce emissions from coal fired power generators.
“Then the same Government provides subsidies to keep those power stations going,” she said…http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/carbon-tax-windfall-for-coal-fired-power-stations/3923076?section=business

30 March: Reuters: Australian brown coal generators snare bulk of $1 bln carbon grants
“The government is implementing measures to underpin a successful energy market transition,” Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said in a statement.
“Cash payments are part of a broader package designed to ensure secure energy supplies as the nation transforms to a low carbon future…http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/australia-carbon-idUKL3E8EU0CQ20120330

I saw it get posted by pat, and thought I had better come and explain it, because it somehow seems odd.

No, I says, wait a bit and see if anyone does comment.

Not a thing.

Doesn’t it strike you as somehow odd that the CO2 tax was supposed to raise money for the Government, and yet here they are giving it away to the very people they are supposed to be taxing in an effort to lower their emissions.

Remember all along, (right from when Ross Garnaut did his taxpayer funded tour to spruik how good his tax was) I have been mentioning that the legislation had in it provisions that if a large coal fired plant operator got into difficulty, then the Government has in place assistance packages.

This is what Garnaut referred to, and I explained as Security of Supply, in other words making sure those plants stayed in operation supplying their vast amounts of power, the Government full in the knowledge that if the operators did get into trouble, and the plant was forced to close, there would be absolute anarchy.

Now, notice how they give this money out beforehand, so in effect it makes the Government look good.

Now also note how the conservation groups have railed against these payments, referring to them as subsidies, and just wait for The Greens to come in and join them, and then note the wall of silence from the Government not wanting to explain it correctly.

So then let’s look at it shall we.

This is not a subsidy.

This is not a handout.

This is churning in its purest of forms.

So, for Hazelwood, International Power, the Government is giving them that huge amount of $266 Million.

How good is that.

Now, when that CO2 tax comes into force, Hazelwood will have to pay for their CO2 implications at that figure of $23 per tonne.

When you look at NGER, Hazelwood’s implication is $396 Million.

So, in fact, Hazelwood gives that $266 Million straight back, and on top of that, has to throw in an extra $130 Million of their own.

The only winners will be the middle men taking their cuts on both transactions.

So, Labor is not giving anything away at all.

That sweetener slowly disappears away to nothing so that in the end Hazelwood will be sending the Government the full amount, and getting nothing back.

Labor knows what chaos will be caused if a plant closes, so at the start, they will ease the plant into it, so it seems that everything looks like it is working well, without any hitches, so they can artfully say that the World hasn’t ended with the introduction of this huge new tax.

This is just another of those Labor cons.

Green supporters see it as subsidy.

Labor is in effect Baldrick, where he says ….. “I have a cunning plan!”

The sad thing is Tony that Pat posts such a lot of stuff that I pass over it without giving it a second glance unless someone like yourself comments on it and that is of interest to me.
Please don’t get me wrong Pat obviously does a great job bringing things to our attention but instead of having two or more paragraphs before providing the link if he had just a couple of lines then I am sure that I and I don’t know how many others would notice and comment on the issues he raises.
Probably my fault for having such a short attention span.:-)

heard a guy from COMMSec or whatever talking on Sky Business last nite how foreign investors and regular aussies are being very conservative, holding their investments and super in bonds and cash, from what i could understand. never know the terminology. said this money would have to get working soon…obviously referring to the stock market. i would have thought people are being prudent by being conservative, cos u never know where your Super might end up:

27 March: Wall St Journal: Kris Hudson: Starwood Goes Shopping for U.S. Malls
Veteran investor Barry Sternlicht is close to making his biggest push to date into the shopping mall industry as his Starwood Capital Group prepares to buy majority stakes in seven U.S. malls from Westfield Group WDC.AU -1.18%for roughly $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter…
In February, Westfield agreed to sell a 45% stake in 11 of its 55 U.S. malls and one mall-development site to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for nearly $2.2 billion.
Other mall owners haven’t had much luck in selling their struggling malls…http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304177104577307981828513796.html

“But this also is a treacherous time to make a big bet on the retail industry, which is battling headwinds from a weak economy, competition from online shopping and overbuilding during the boom years. It also is facing the ongoing closure of hundreds of stores by mall stalwarts such as Sears Holdings Corp., and Abercrombie & Fitch Co.”

James Lovelock said in 2007 that “Billions of us will die; the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Artic”. Yet late 2010 he conceded “ Everybody might be wrong…”I may be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out…. The skeptics have kept us sane”

Try and keep up, Flannery. Write down 100 times: “I might be wrong; I often am.”

finally a mention of the cost of the CAGW-inspired Renewable Energy Scheme. every time someone says don’t blame the rises on the carbon tax, remind them we’re already paying for CAGW policies:

30 March: Brisbane Times: Electricity prices set to rise
Queenslanders face electricity price increases up to $122 with the introduction of the carbon tax, the state’s competition authority warns.
Without the federal carbon tax due to take effect on July 1, the typical household electricity bill would have decreased in the 2012-13 financial year by $70, the Queensland Competition Authority said…
The authority, which sets the benchmark retail power price, also warned the federal government’s Renewable Energy Target scheme would push costs up further.
“In addition, the Commonwealth Enhanced Renewable Energy Target Scheme, which has not been removed despite the introduction of the carbon tax, adds $92.80 [5.4 per cent] to a typical residential household’s annual bill,” the report reads.http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/electricity-prices-set-to-rise-20120330-1w2w4.html

Jo, you ask “who is next? Cate Blanchett?”
My next “favourite” Oz calamity clown is Prof Richard Kingsford. What an absolute fruitcake! But I guess in his shoes, he can see big money benefit in emulating Flannery, and favours “opportunities” offered on TV, I guess for that purpose.
BTW, at first I thought that Flannery’s award was an April 1 joke, so checked today’s date, and ended up gobsmacked and sickened.
Obviously the chore Fellows could not have been consulted, and it seems that the AAS is sadly following the course of the UK Royal Society!

this spooky little story is supposed to convince Believers CAGW must be true…

29 March: Detroit Free Press: Brian Dickerson: Global warming biggest threat to U.S. security, retired officer says
Lee Gunn — “Lee” is how he introduces himself, although most people call him Admiral Gunn, in deference to his 35 years as a U.S. Naval officer — does not look like a Prius driver, much less a tree-hugger.
Which is why many people do a double take when the Pontiac-born Gunn tells them that global warming is the most serious national security issue confronting the U.S. — or, as he puts it, ” the existential threat to America and its influence in the world” as humanity’s appetite for energy mushrooms…
But the 70-year-old Gunn is deeply concerned about all these things — which is why he is touring the country with another retired admiral from Britain’s Royal Navy, telling governors, state legislators and editorial boards that they’d better get busy about developing new sources of energy or resign themselves to the end of America’s economic and military supremacy.
Gunn is the president of the Institute for Public Research at CNA, a 70-year-old Virginia-based research organization that also includes the Center for Naval Analyses.
CNA began staking out a prominent role in the renewable energy debate five years ago, when its Military Advisory Board (“mostly retired three- and four-stars or flag officers”) issued a widely circulated report called “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.”…
Gunn and his retired naval colleagues have spent much of this week talking to Republicans in the state Legislature and the Snyder administration, whom they describe as genuinely interested in pushing beyond the partisan gridlock between drill-baby-drill Republicans and tree-hugging Democrats…
Jeremy Kalin, a “recovering state legislator” from Minnesota who accompanied Gunn on his mission to Lansing, said the pair has eschewed diversionary arguments about the causes of climate change or which energy technologies are the most promising to emphasize that Michigan should be aggressively making use of all energy sources, with an eye to reducing environmental and national security risk and averting “bad consequences” in the future…http://www.freep.com/article/20120329/COL04/203290455/Brian-Dickerson-Global-warming-biggest-threat-to-U-S-security-retired-officer-says

David Murray, the outgoing chairman of the Australia Future Fund (a pension scheme set up to fund retirement of Federal public servants) has gone on record as stating the Carbon Tax is the worst economic reform he has seen in Australia in his life. While his comments are heartening, the response fom the Australian Government and the Greens is a big worry. Once again they fall back to corrupted science as their primary defence.

Perth dams John as you well know are somewhere under half full like they always are.If Perth depended on its dams for its water supply then maybe it would be a ghost metropolis.But its not and it is not because we have a desal plant.

More significantly, WA is pretty flat. You need rapid changes in altitude for effective hydro-power. There aren’t many places where it’d be feasible to provide a large catchment at altitude with the necessary fall in height for worthwhile generation. The Darling scarp is convenient, but a reservoir of sufficient capacity isn’t going to be built.

Hydro-electric isn’t useful for providing the bulk of electricity in a modern, industrial nation; unless you’re blessed with “crinkly bits” of topography and precipitation like Norway.

Nuclear power is IMHO the best option for WA. Using small, modular, molten-salt reactors which facilitate installation close to larger consumers (towns, etc totalling more than 200MWe+) without grid connections over thousands of km. Smaller, molten-salt thorium reactors are more thermodynamically efficient so they need a smaller “heat sink” to reject heat to generate electricity. That heat sink could be air … so no large body of water required nearby. Of course if water is available, then a cooling tower is the best way to provide a cold place for the heat to go to make the generating turbines run.

What the hell is going on? The Royal Society and now the AAS – throwing away their reputations and credibility over a pseudo-religion. I say pseudo-religion because the ‘dangerous climate change’ movement clearly doesn’t surpass the heady heights of superstition. That the AAS must be content to award its once-esteemed membership to individuals who hold views that are contrary to the empirical evidence that the Earth is not warming dangerously is frankly at once sad and dsiturbing. We really must be entering a new dark age. What the hell happended to scientific integrity?

I barely scraped through matriculation physics at the end of senior high school in 1968, yet today I read “peer-reviewed, published, scientific papers” that would have been considered April Fools Joke material back then, and yet are considered “cutting edge science” today.

Is this somehow new down under? In these United States I would suspect most scientific congregations have been corrupted for 50 years atleast. That corresponds to the push for mass university ‘education’. Thence a strata was added to the castes, Academe.

What I think would be good is for Campbell Newman to hold an inquiry
into the Queensland desal plant and if it can be shown that the desal plant was constructed on Mr Flannery’s scare mongering then maybe Mr Flannery should be investigated.
In any case the Queensland desal plant should be held up as a great example of what happens when we try to mitigate against the weather.
What Queensland needed was flood mitigation not drought mitigation.
How many people would not have lost their lives and/or possessions if money had been spent on flood mitigation and not on a desal plant.
So when people in future start banging on about mitigation they just need to be reminded that before you can mitigate against something you need to know what that something is

1. Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by a committee that later admitted that, no, he’d not actually done anything yet, but he advocated in the right direction, and so they felt the Nobel would provide him with the incentive to proceed to work his obvious magic and bring us World Peace. Perhaps your Academy had similar thoughts, and awarded TF the fellowship hoping it would cause him to pick up a book.

2. “This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.”

If the earth had a brain, it would have spun up its rotational speed and flung all of us humans off into space eons ago. It would have no need for ego-ridden flea-like skin parasites working hard to “save” it. In fact, it might welcome a planet-searing, life-ending nuclear fire the way we might welcome an athlete’s foot spray.

Let’s not forget the time this genius (sorry, I don’t have citation details) made two fundamental errors in a statement comparing average global temperature in the 18th century and now. He made a basic arithmetical error in calculating a percentage increase, and secondly he based the calculation on a comparison of two celsius values, rather than Kelvin. That will get you an F in high school maths/physics, but it’s apparently no impediment to Academician status.

IMHO, Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Annie Wilson in The Gift clearly shows she should be offered a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, since she demonstrates clairvoyance that goes beyond even the best Climate Modeller

Let me give you some good news about the Australian Academy of Science. I have just been reading an excellent report called Report of a Committee on Climatic Change. It introduces the topic thus:

Pronouncements about the climate from scientists in a number of different fields, and pressure on the world’s food supplies, have resulted in the production of reviews of two kinds. The first is the investigation by committees and conferences organized by natural scientists of the existence, nature and extent of the purported climatic changes (e.g. Inter-departmental Committee, 1974; World Meteorological Organization, 1975a; National Academy of Science, 1975, Australian Academy of Science/Australian Branch, Royal Meteorological Society, 1976). The second consists of a series of papers and conferences organized by social scientists, but with contributions from natural scientists, examining the political, social and economic consequences of such climatic changes, should these develop as predicted (e.g. Rockefeller Foundation, 1974; International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Study, 1974, 4975a, 1975b). Such a flurry of activity in the scientific world, rippling out to political and social scientists and so impinging on politicians, as at the World Food conference in November 1974, naturally provoked the publication of general scientific articles in journals like Science and Nature, and popular presentation and comment in magazines such as the New Scientist and Ecologist as well as the daily press. In the more popular accounts, notably those by T. Alexander (1974) and [Nigel] Calder (1974), the issues were inevitably over-simplified and extreme points of view given greater currency than was their due. It is in the stark simplistic terms of the popular scientific articles that the world’s press has interpreted the situation, with forebodings of an imminent return to the cold of the last glacial period.

Deep concern about climatic change amongst social scientists, politicians and the public is justified only if the underlying proposition that we are in the throes of a substantial climatic change is correct. However, even if the prediction of imminent adverse change proves unsubstantiated, or if a continuing trend of climatic change cannot be demonstrated, the concern generated by these views has been useful in emphasising the natural variability of climate, which should itself be a component in economic planning.

The rest of the report reads like it should have been called The Sceptics Handbook on the Ice Age Scare. It concludes:

We conclude that there is no evidence that the world is now on the brink of a major climatic change

[AAS #21, Mar, 1976]
Ahh yes, 1976, those were the days when idle scaremongerers were the opponents not the fellows of science.

Isn’t this whole story just another example of the trouble with Academies though. They all seem to end up suffering from some sort of aemia.

-aemia , ( US ) -haemia , ( US ) -emia or ( US ) -hemia

— n combining form
denoting blood, esp a specified condition of the blood in names of diseases: eg.anaemia

[New Latin, from Greek -aimia, from haima blood]

Acadaemia comes to represents one of the worst sorts of rot that can afflict a society and one of which Eisenhower warnded us in his departing address, on the dangers of becoming hostage to a politico-acadaemic elite.

Such Academies are very much about the establishment, existing to protect and promote established views, by ensuring their members conform to their line if they want to remain part of the club, while paying lip service to such grand sounding things as freedom of thought and such.

While attracting all the resources, rather than promoting it, such Academies are generally a constriction on the freedom of enquiry that is necessary to make truly world changing discoveries.

I have been reading some biographies of Nobel Prize winners lately. For example, Linus Pauling and Richard Feynman. It is very interesting to note that they had to work long and hard after their graduate days even to start publishing papers. They had a long period of being mentored by older professors in their specialties.

It was ages before they gained a PhD and more long years to be maybe called an associate professor. Only after years of scrutiny by peers and testing their observations did the notion of receiving a Nobel prize arise. And only then did they have honours from well trusted Universities given to them.

Poor old Einstein had to beg and plead before he was even admitted to teach in a university. That is why he was only working as a second rate patent clerk in Switzerland when he developed his Theory of Relativity. Even then, he did not gain admission straight away to an academic institution.

Even so, he did not receive his Nobel Prize until years later, but it was for the photoelectric effect. His theory is still being tested to see if it is a ‘fact’. It has been proved time after time even in quantum mechanics (Feynman). A recent NASA satellite again confirmed his theory. But, as he once said, if a single instance refutes a theory then it is no longer valid.

To my mind Flannery et al should not be awarded ad hoc honours for such vague theories as AGW.

[...] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science [...]

[...] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science “So [...]

[...] who will happily spin a story on any finding way beyond its original significance; Tim Flannery for PR and wild statements; the late Stephen Schneider for his encouragement of climate science to oversell the science “So [...]